Matchbox 1/72 Supermarine Stranraer

OK, it is time for me to take the plunge and start on my first proper flying boat model! I've only ever attempted one before as a kid, that was the Matchbox Norseman, and I'm not sure I ever actually finished it as it required yellow and I was a brush painter then! Yellow never seemed to work properly with brushes

Anyway, my next (and hopefully far more successful!) seaplane model is the Matchbox 1/72 Supermarine Stranraer. Looking it over it looks a surprisingly nice little kit and seems to all fit together nicely, so I'm looking forward to finally getting on with it.

My first decision on the kit came with the gun placements and the side door, did I want them open or closed? Well, closed meant a whole lot less work (very appealing!), but the door was an awful fit, so I decided on that being open. To add a little detail in there I decided to add some ribbing to the interior where it could be seen opposite the door. While doing this I was still trying to make up my mind about the gun placements.

Then I wondered if any other areas would be visible through the windows and stuff like that... one thing lead to another and before I knew it I had gone and added ribbing to the entire thing nearly. I still don't know why I did it, but for some weird reason I actually enjoyed it!!? Completely ficticious, but has something other than a smooth interior in there anyway! Gun placements finally decided as open

It's all painted up now and ready to close up, including a pilot too. I thought he'd look good in there if he can be seen through the thick canopy glass!

Here's a little more progress on the Stranraer... Things have started moving along a little bit now, which is a damned good job with how close Telford seems now!

I've dealt with all the seams on the fuselage and rubbed them down properly now. The canopy has been dipped in klear and fitted, with the small gaps around it sealed with some gator glue as they we pretty small. The side windows have been filled in with some Humbrol clearfix that will act as a mask when spraying. I will remove them and do it all again at the end, saves having to plug up the small gaps. The lower wings and tail are also added now, and the necessary filling has been done.

Don't those colours look cool!!

And work is now progressing on the top wing and engines... just filling in the gaps around them.

Some slight progress on the Stranraer... I now have joined the top wing together. When dry fitting it I found that there was no positivity to the wings joining the centre section, and they could fit anywhere from a +20 degree dihedral, down to a -20 degree one they were that loose! :wacko: So, I figured the only way to get it right was to temporarily attach all of the struts and then balance the whole lot on top, and glue them then. After many, many attempts at setting this up, and using a whole vocabulary of swears, I got them balanced and quickly splotted some glue in there.

Once the wing was all dried, I took it off again and removed all the struts. There were some pretty prominent join gaps that required some superglue/talc filler, and plenty of rubbing down. I did lose a little of the scalloping detail in that area, but there was nothing I could do about that, and will have to live with it.

There was also a fiddly little fault in the top of one wing. It looks like the plastic had an air bubble, or didn't flow properly into one point, and this left a divot that sat right on a scalloped shaping on the wing. In order to sort it out I used some Mr Surfacer and applied several coats to fill it up. I then carefully rubbed it down and did my best not to alter or lose the surrounding shaping. Luckily as it sands very easily it did the job nicely.

Here's the divot. It doesn't look like much in the pic, but would have stuck out like a sore thumb if left...

And filled in with Mr Surfacer...

And finally rubbed down and smoothed out... job done!

And the top wing all filled and sanded ready to move onto the next steps.